You might think so but Inside Technologies SA was founded in 1995 as I remember, by escapees from Motorola and Gemplus who were leading the smartcard explosion as a result of its use in SIMs for mobile phones.
Inside subsequently went after the contactless smartcard market and changed its name to Inside Contactless, and this got them into NFC.
They are now emphasizing their security credentials and so the company name is Inside Secure...but they are a 16 year old private company waiting to IPO

Inside must be a very young company since NFC is very recent. Is interesting to see new companies can have success in very short time if they point their efforts to the right technologies.
Intel needs to be in touch with NFC experts in order to fast forward its products to be NFC capable.

The pun in the title was too easy.
As to laptop, notebook use cases, I am not sure.
But imagine NFC becomes pervasive on smartphones and tablets.
There may then come an expectation that you can transfer product details or informaton to your computer by holding the item close to the machine. In other words most equipment needs to be NFC capable just in case and to allow unforeseen business models.

What use will Intel inside laptop or desktop computers make of NFC? Typically these devices are turned off / hibernating when they are moving around. If used while traveling (train, plane), the near field (train, plane) is stationary relative to the computer even if the computer and vehicle are both moving with respect to the distant outside world. It seems that NFC credit cards, iPads, and SmartPhones are the devices where NFC can shine for payments because they are turned on as their owner walks through local shops.
[P.S. I love the pun in the article title.]